Anna+Lindquist

On August 19, 1917, 31-year-old seamstress Anna Lindquist died at Chicago's County Hospital from a criminal abortion perpetrated that day, reportedly by nurse/midwife Katherine Schmidt.

Schmidt was tried in Anna's death but acquitted on February 28, 1918 for reasons not indicated on the source document..

Anna, a native of Sweden, was the unmarried daughter of John and Sophie (Burgstrom) Lindquist.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion] Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database



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